Hitters struggle, but Buck tries not to lose faith
ATLANTA — The Mets haven’t turned a blind eye toward the club’s struggles this season. Fans might be screaming into a Twitter void about Daniel Vogelbach being in the lineup over Mark Vientos one night after going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, or complaining about Jeff McNeil hitting second instead of Francisco Lindor after the shortstop hit his 11th home run of the season Tuesday night, but there is a method to the madness.
“Anytime we have a number of guys that haven’t yet performed to their track record, you try to make their path easier to get back to that,” Buck Showalter said Wednesday at Truist Park before the Mets took on the Braves in the second game of a three-game series. “You’re frustrated for them.”
The guys on the field seem equally as frustrated. It’s always easy to see when McNeil, the Mets’ doit-all utility man and the 2022 NL batting champion, is struggling. It’s evident in his body language and the way he slams his bat after making an out instead of getting on base. He hasn’t quite followed up on his All-Star season. The Mets moved McNeil up to the second spot in the lineup Wednesday with the theory being that he might see some better pitches to hit.
“Ask me after the game,” Showalter said of whether he will get those pitches. “I hope so. There are a lot of different theories that sometimes do and sometimes don’t.”
With Vogelbach, the Mets’ left-handed hitting DH, it’s a little different. The jovial slugger has remained upbeat in the clubhouse despite the fact that he hasn’t been slugging the ball. But he has had some success against Braves right-hander Charlie Morton in the past (5-for-15 with two home runs, four RBI, a double and four walks), which factored into the decision to put him in the lineup again.
Showalter has to try to balance the playing time between Vogelbach and Vientos, and so far that hasn’t been much of a balance. Giving Vogelbach a day off against a pitcher he has hit in the past may not be in the best interest of the player, though it may be for the team at times, which is why Showalter tries to check in with his players often.
“You always have to keep that line of communication,” Showalter said. “Whether you’re a hitting coach or an infield coach or a manager, you know, you have to be a consistent personality with these guys. They’ll sniff out phoniness in a heartbeat. If you only like them when they’re good and you don’t like them when they’re bad, that doesn’t play well. I try real hard not to live in that world. They’re in a world that’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world. They understand that when they took this profession, so to speak.”
There is a human element to all of this as well. Showalter is cognizant of what is going on outside of baseball to keep in mind anything else that could affect them on the field.
“It’s like with somebody you care about, we all want to somehow make it better.”
WEATHER REPORT
Smoke from Canadian wildfires postponed games for the Mets’ Double- and Triple-A affiliates in Binghamton and Syracuse. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Mets had not received any information about postponements this weekend in Pittsburgh, which is currently under an air quality warning.